Datelines

UNITED NATIONS - U.N. officials and human-rights groups fear for the safety of witnesses if Secretary-General Kofi Annan withdraws a U.N. team sent to the Congo to investigate massacres.

Indonesia

JAKARTA - Police fired volleys of tear gas at stone-throwing students during an anti-government protest today at a university campus east of Jakarta.

South Africa

BENONI - A white farmer accused of shooting a black infant to death withdrew his request for bail today as hundreds of protesters chanted and sang for justice outside.

Mexico

MEXICO CITY - Mexican police Thursday said they had recovered a television camera stolen in a high-profile robbery of journalists who work for the U.S. television network CNN.

Turkey

ANKARA - U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen urged Turkey and Greece on Friday to ease tension over Cyprus, but said the bitter dispute would not interfere with possible U.S. arms sales to both NATO allies.

Mongolia

ULAN BATOR - Mongolia's cabinet on Friday submitted an offer to the president to resign en masse, a government spokesman said.

China

HONG KONG - Hong Kong said on Friday it will bring in "red tide" experts to prevent a repeat of the algae bloom that has crippled its fish farming industry.

Kuwait

Saudi Arabian tourists spend $17 billion a year, according to a study by the kingdom's chamber of trade and commerce published Friday.

Iran

TEHRAN - Iran's former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Friday called recent political tension over the imprisonment of the mayor of Tehran a bitter episode and said the notion of widespread corruption had turned young people against the revolution.

Bangladesh

GAIBANDHA - The number of people killed from a batch of home-brewed liquor in Bangladesh rose to 65 on Friday, a day after hundreds of protesters attacked the narcotics control office, police said.

Vietnam

HANOI - Vietnam has jailed 15 youths after convicting them of involvement in illegal motorbike races last Christmas that ended in violent clashes with police, a Hanoi People's Court official said Friday.

Serbia

PRISTINA - Suspected ethnic Albanian separatists shot and wounded a compatriot loyal to Serbian state authority in the restive southern province of Kosovo, local independent media said Friday.

Lebanon

MARJAYOUN - An Israeli soldier was wounded by shelling in south Lebanon Friday, a pro-Israeli militia source said.

Dominican Republic

SANTO DOMINGO - Five Central American nations and the Dominican Republic have signed a limited free trade pact creating a $50 billion market of more than 40 million people.

Russia

MOSCOW - Fake vodka has killed at least 54 people this year in Russia's southern Tuva region, authorities said today.

Germany

ORANIENBURG - The remains of 32 Nazi victims found in a gravel pit near the former Sachsenhausen concentration camp will be re-buried Sunday in an ecumenical service.